Pros:
Wow! A course designer who knows his stuff plus a local group of players that's willing and able to execute to a very high standard equals a round of golf that stands among the classics.
Let's start at the beginning.
At hole 1 (fall out of your car and you're on the teepad) you have a really classy bench, a high-quality kiosk complete with large, easy-to-read map, and a great warmup hole: uphill, no obstacles, just what you need to get the blood flowing.
After that warmup you ease into a series of technical holes that present various line-shaping challenges through the woods. The fairways are narrow, the rough, ROUGH, and the variety is constant.
For instance, check out hole #5, which is short but uphill and incorporates an extreme dogleg left. It's probably reachable with an overhand shot but since I don't do that well I'm forced to play the fairway, which looks a bit like a worm on a hot sidewalk.
Or check out #8, which is also short, this time downhill, but once you shoot the gap between the trees you have to land on a narrow strip between two OB ponds.
Then there's #10, which actually starts with a forced annie shot and then doubles back on itself with a dogleg left.
Sprinkled in the mix are a couple of ace runs and then, starting with #14, some long bomb opportunities. 18 is probably the weakest hole on the course, looks almost like an afterthought, but once you've navigated the first 17 holes you're glad to see something so straightforward.
All throughout the course, the tees were generous and the baskets pristine. The signage, though, really showed what could be done. Every sign showed the hole layout, the distance, the par, the location of the next tee, any mandos, and it was all done tastefully, without clutter. Ten gold stars to whoever did this.
Cons:
The main "con" here is the lack of amenities once you leave tee #1. It would be a really significant improvement to see a few benches here and there (buck a log into two-foot segments and presto!) and trash cans likewise. Seems a shame that a course that's been open for less than a month already shows beer cans, cigarette packs, and other cr@p that people have "mistakenly" forgotten to pack out.
With the amount of work that's already gone into this course, those two items seem pretty simple and would easily add half a disc to my rating.
The only other thing I didn't like was the fact that you had to cross #10's fairway to get from #12's basket to the tee for #13. Seems to me that if you played 12 (backwards) first and then 11 (backwards) next, that problem would disappear.
Other Thoughts:
Somebody has put birdhouses up in several places in the woods. No birds that I could see living there yet, but they're sort of a signal to avoid trees - a good philosophy in general, imo.
All in all, this is a very classy course that will only get better as the community continues to take care of their baby. I'll be back, you bet.
ADD: Talked with the designer, who clarified a couple of my comments above. Hole #18 will change dramatically when the young trees there grow up. Give it a few years and that hole will be on a par with the rest of the course.
Also, regarding the order of play of #11 and 12, the Parks Dept had safety issues with the jogging path - that's why it was configured the way it was.